Gerrard hits the spot to put Liverpool on top

MARK BRYANS

LIVERPOOL moved back to the top of the Barclays Premier League table as captain Steven Gerrard scored two penalties to see off a spirited West Ham side at Upton Park.

West Ham United 1 - 2 Liverpool

SCORERS: West Ham; Demel (45), Liverpool; Gerrard (pen 44, pen 71)

Venue: Upton Park

Referee: A Taylor

Attendance: 34,977

With Chelsea’s win over Stoke on Saturday moving the Blues to the summit, Brendan Rodgers’ side reacted to the pressure with an unconvincing win – the type teams with title-winning aspiration are nevertheless all too happy for at this stage.

Gerrard struck from the spot in either half, with Guy Demel drawing West Ham level in first-half stoppage time. Now Liverpool can prepare for an Anfield clash with Manchester City on Sunday, knowing another win would bring a first league title for 24 years even closer.

The Reds’ return to top spot seemed to be going smoothly as Gerrard’s first penalty put them ahead late in the first half, but the hosts hit back almost immediately with a controversial Demel leveller after former Liverpool striker Andy Carroll appeared to foul Simon Mignolet in the build-up.

The visitors’ second penalty was another contentious decision, with referee Anthony Taylor deciding Jon Flanagan had been fouled by Adrian, but Gerrard thrashed the spot-kick home to wrap up a ninth consecutive win for Liverpool.

After the match, Gerrard heaped praise on his team-mates for the spirit they showed to recover from the setback of West Ham’s leveller. “There is great resolve, character and togetherness from the squad,” he said.

“We did [feel a sense of injustice], but the manager said to us at half-time we can’t change anything. That one went against us, but we couldn’t feel sorry for ourselves. We had to roll our sleeves up and give an extra ten per cent. “You can see clearly it’s a foul, the linesmen flagged for it and the referee has overruled him.”

Gerrard is not getting too excited about the title race yet. “I am not convinced [Liverpool will win the league] just yet,” he added. “We have very hard games to go, we’ve got a huge game next week. We’ve got to give everything we can.”

The Premier League’s leading goalscorer Luis Suarez could not add to his tally but hit the woodwork twice, with Carroll also kept at bay by the crossbar with a strong header after the interval.

Suarez sent out a warning shot inside the opening three minutes as he bent a 30-yard free-kick just over the top of Adrian’s crossbar. He went closer still with his next effort as he clipped a shot over the West Ham goalkeeper, only to see the ball come back into play off the woodwork.

All of Liverpool’s threat was coming courtesy of 29-goal man Suarez as he looked to whip the ball past Adrian from another opening, with James Tomkins bravely heading the shot behind. Unlike his strike partner, Daniel Sturridge had been shackled well in the opening 30 minutes and could only balloon a chance high over the crossbar as the ball dropped to him. The England man faired little better after Tomkins fluffed his lines as he tried to clear the ball, arrowing a shot wide of Adrian’s goal.

With just a minute remaining of the first half, Suarez was released by a sumptuous Gerrard pass and, as the Uruguayan looked to cut inside, the ball hit the arm of Tomkins, with referee Taylor pointing to the spot. Gerrard stepped up confidently to send Adrian the wrong way and put the visitors ahead.

But West Ham did not let their heads drop and levelled in controversial circumstances on the stroke of half-time. Mark Noble’s corner was aimed towards Carroll, whose hand caught Mignolet in the face as the goalkeeper looked to take possession, with Demel on hand to turn the ball in.

Taylor gave the goal after a long consultation with assistant referee Stuart Burt and was in deep discussion with Rodgers as the teams disappeared down the tunnel at half-time.

The Hammers started the second half under pressure but managed to soak up anything Liverpool could throw at them before the hour-mark before creating the best chance to take the lead.

Demel and Diame combined down the right before the latter swung in a cross which was attacked from deep by Carroll, whose header cracked off the crossbar with Mignolet well-beaten.

Sturridge burst past Matt Taylor and Winston Reid as the half went on but once again his direction was slightly askew and he failed to test Adrian.

West Ham skipper Kevin Nolan was replaced by Antonio Nocerino with a little over 20 minutes remaining, having struggled with a back injury throughout the week.

Moments later, Liverpool were awarded a second penalty as Adrian was adjudged to have brought down Flanagan, despite getting a hand to the ball before bundling into the full-back. Gerrard again made no mistake from 12 yards, scoring a pair of penalties for the second time this season and putting the visitors back in front at Upton Park.

Sturridge finally managed to find the target with ten minutes remaining as he fired in a dipping volley which was too close to Adrian to cause the Spaniard any real trouble.

Suarez once again hit the crossbar, this time with a swerving lob, and was denied by the feet of Adrian late on, with Sterling also forcing a smart save from the West Ham goalkeeper in injury time.

Liverpool then saw out the remaining four minutes of added time without incident to return to the top of the Premier League pile.

Liverpool boss Rodgers claimed his side were deserved winners, saying: “We were clearly the better team. West Ham had one shot on target which was the goal. It was a brilliant win today and keeps our run going.”

Hammers boss Sam Allardyce admitted Carroll did foul Mignolet in the build-up to his side’s equaliser, but said the second Liverpool decision was also the wrong call. He said the referee was in a poor position and “guessed”.

“Flanagan is going down before Adrian plays the ball,” he said. “He thinks Adrian hasn’t played the ball and he has. In that position where he is he has got to be 100 per cent certain.

“I feel let down, the lads feel really let down. We took Liverpool right to the wire.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.